Earthblade
by A Common Hero
Summary: The heartless have finaly reached Earth.Unfortunately, Sora isn't here to save us. Full sumury inside.
1. Prolog

Full summary: This is the first story of a series, known as the Earthblade series. The story is about how a new keyblade master (OC) faces his first challenge, on his home world, Earth. It will also detail how he came to poses the keyblade, in a later chapter. Sorry, but the only Kingdom Hearts characters in this installment are the heartless, the rest are OCs.

Disclaimer: I do not own the heartless. I do not own the keyblade. I do own Andrew, Devlin, Maria, and all my other OCs. I own Shadowhaven. I doubt I own Earth. I think I own just about everything else too.

A/N: I will put an author's note at the beginning and end of every chapter. I will stop if at least ten reviewers tell me to stop. This chapter is a prolog, and is in the POV of a shadow heartless. He is obviously not the main character.

**Earthblade**

**Prolog:**

The creature sensed a darkness, faint but still their. It mindlessly chased it down, like a predator hunting its prey. In fact, it was exactly like a predator hunting its prey. The soon to be victim was an unarmed child, approximately 15 years old. The child's heart was as pure as they come, but still their was the darkness, every light, casting a shadow. Though running through the urban jungle, tall constructs of brick and concrete surrounding him and his demonic pursuer, the heartless sensed no fear from him. A smarter creature would know something was up, but the shadow only knew that this boy had something he needed, a heart.

Yet their was always a voice of reason, a light casting the shadow. _You can't use me for this, I won't let you!_ The man cried out to his dark counterpart in vein, as he knew it would be.

He was just an average man, before the heartless arrived. He had a desk job, which he did every day of the week, ridiculous as it seemed with the evil creatures invading. One night, a small group of heartless, three shadows and a solider, knocked down his door. He was transformed instantly, no last words, requests, or even a chance to run were given to him. The heartless didn't operate like that.

He remained alive, trapped inside his own darkness, watching the deaths of hundreds of people, each one his fault, each one beyond his control. He eventually stopped screaming, no one could hear him, except the damned thing he had become, and it sure as hell didn't care. Slowly, he began to go crazy, trapped within his own mind, begging for death. The worst part of it was, he was the shadow, and he felt its emotions. The emptiness within it, the hunger for darkness, and the thrill of the kill, the only three things it felt, were constantly flowing through him, like a river of sins, his, yet at the same time, not his.

This was different though. This was the first time he, it, had tried to kill a child. _He isn't afraid of you! He doesn't look stupid either. He has a plan; I hope he kills you, you bastard!_

The shadow of his former self ignored him. It ignored everything, except its need to feed. The boy was 20 yards away, and had led them down an alleyway. However, it was then he did something peculiar. The boy stopped, turned around, and stood there, as if waiting for the heartless to kill him.

_What are doing, run you idiot!_

The shadow was already feeling the serge of victory. It took mere moments to close the gap, and lunge!

_No!_

That's when it all stopped. Their was a flash of light, and for a half a second, the darkness knew fear. Then the world began to fade away, as it collided with the light. The darkness was sealed back within the man's heart, his to control. The last thing he saw before heading towards whatever the next life would bring was the image of a giant key, and then he went blind, his vision blocked by an eternal light. The last thing he heard came from the boy, and he said, "Be free." Then the man was gone.

A/N: I would appreciate reviews. I will give credit to all reviewers who give me constructive criticism in the A/N at the beginning of the next chapter. Other than that, tell me if you like it, tell me if you don't, but I defiantly want to be able to read your reviews reviews, and sorry but I only speak _English_. This is my first story, so I really want to here what everyone thinks.


	2. Hindsight

Full summary: This is the first story of a series, known as the Earthblade series. The story is about how a new keyblade master (OC) faces his first challenge, on his home world, Earth. It will also detail how he came to poses the keyblade, in a later chapter. Sorry, but the only Kingdom Hearts characters in this installment are the heartless, the rest are OCs.

Disclaimer: I do not own the heartless. I do not own the keyblade. I do own Andrew, Devlin, Maria, and all my other OCs. I own Shadowhaven. I doubt I own Earth. I think I own just about everything else too.

A/N: Thanks to PP.bunny for writing my first review. Common people, why is his review the only one? As I edit this, I have 30 hits. I hope it's not that bad. Well, maybe if I type up more, I'll get more reviews. This chapter is an excerpt from the main character's journal, acting as a synopsis of some of the back-story. In hindsight, this probably would have worked better as a prolog, but oh well.

**Chapter 1: Hindsight**

An excerpt from the audio journal of Andrew. 2/19/07

_It's my birthday today. Big deal, no one has time to celebrate. More importantly, it's the anniversary, of what, well, many things. The day I first encountered a real heartless, the day I received the Keyblade, the day I got my friends in over their heads, and the day of the disaster. Has it really been a year?_

_We eat, sleep, and battle in my hometown, the city of Shadowhaven. Ironic isn't it? Shadowhaven has become the first haven for the shadows. The largest section of the city is almost completely untouched, but the majority of the people live in the center of the city. This part of the city is a complete hellhole! Almost all the people live hear, so, naturally, so do almost all the heartless. Over the past year, buildings have been burned down, reduced to rubble, or, if you're **lucky**, completely ruined, though not beyond the point where you can't live in it anymore. I try to convince the people to move out of the center, spread out a little more, so that it may not be so extreme anymore. However, my words fall on deaf ears; they'll hear nothing of it. If they can't get out of the city where it's safe, then they see no reason to leave their homes._

_Another thing, it's really peculiar, but, the heartless seam to have raised some sort of dark, dome-like, barrier around the city. It keeps everyone in, and out, even my keyblade can't pierce it. Hell, the military set off a nuclear bomb on it, among other things, and it didn't so much as leave a scratch! Have you ever watched a nuclear bomb go off, up close and personal, it's really quit beautiful, albeit, a little scary._

_I just don't get! Why would the heartless cut themselves off from their supply of food by keeping more people, even dangerous soldiers, out of the city? Are they even capable of an emission of energy this powerful? Nothing in the game suggested they could. Maybe their trying to keep me from the keyhole, but are they even that intelligent? Perhaps there is more to this than meets the eye._

_Another thing, no heartless has ever been sighted outside the city. Their is nothing about it on the news, though they do show a lot about the attacks in Shadowhaven. Why are they limiting their source of pray to us? Are they trying to gang up on me? Are they capable of forming such a strategy? The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that there is a greater intellect at work hear, someone has the heartless on a leash, and they are sicking them on me!_

_Oh wait, I have foolishly led anyone listening to this to believe I am alone in my struggle. I am not. I have my two best friends to help me. Yet everyday I have to wonder, is it right to allow them, two mortal children, to risk their lives everyday, for my sake?_

_Did I say mortal? That may not be the best word to describe my good friend, Maria. Ever since the discovery of the heartless in our world, Maria has gained the power of sorcery! She can cast magic of all types, from cure, to coldest ice, magnetic, to gravitational. She's even better at it than I, the keyblade master am! Yet, once out of MP, (magic actually requires MP, and I always thought that was just to limit its usefulness in video games), she is a liability on the battlefield. Wearing denim jeans and a t-shirt, she isn't exactly clad in bulletproof armor. To top it all off, her weapon of choice is a staff; witch admittedly does boost her magic powers, but is not an effective melee tool. Therefore, until her MP recovers, it is up to both Devlin and me to protect her._

_Now Devlin, he's her exact opposite! He may not be bulletproof, but he doesn't wear normal clothes either. He goes around fighting this demonic evil in a black karate uniform, with a red belt around his waist. He is a black belt, and I keep trying to get him to wear his black belt, as a confidence booster for the people, but he just shrugs and says, "A victory is determined by the skill of the warrior, not the skill of his belt. Besides, the red belt looks cooler." He fights in the exact opposite style as Maria too. He has two katana hanging from his belt, although how they do, without **any **visible sign that they can, is beyond me. Believe me, they aren't for decoration, their hand crafted (by Devlin himself), battle ready, and Devlin knows how to use them. Don't think an average human can run ten feet up a wall, jump down it in a spiral, and use twin katana like a drill to both impale and slash apart enemies. I see Devlin doing it every day. He worked hard to learn the way of the warrior from his parents. In return, he now a master at all forms of melee combat. Unfortunately, they didn't teach him anything about magic, and he is in need of either Maria's assistance, or my own, if he wishes to fight large groups of enemies for extended periods, as he requires someone else to cure him._

_Then theirs me, the last hope for our world, maybe for all the worlds. I'm the keyblade master. I used to be, well, a bit of a nerd, but the keyblade is one powerful weapon. Its magic runs through my body with each swing, and with that as a source of power, even a weakling like me can be a heartless slaying master. My weapon gives me what has so far amounted to unlimited stamina, to the point of making up for many sleepless nights. On top of that, my strength was boosted to super human levels, considering the highest level of human potential to be Devlin like. Ever since the disaster, I have been unable to stop myself, the heartless must die! You could say I've become more than a little obsessed. I assign my friends to the outer rim of the city, the people their need protection just as much as the center of the infestation. Meanwhile, I tackle the heartless in the badlands, our codeword for the center of the city, alone. After all, it makes sense to focus our strongest power (all modesty aside) on the heart of the problem._

_If anyone is listening to this, it is already too late. Our world is done for, or may already be gone, and I'm dead with it. I can feel it, the war is about to end here on our world. All I can hope is that this account will be taken seriously, and whoever is reading this will prepare their world for the upcoming struggle you will soon face._

_Holding out the best we can, hope to see you soon, for your sakes, and ours._

_Andrew_

A/N: I promised PP.bunny that I would have this out yesterday. Unfortunately, I didn't predict internet trouble. So sorry, I didn't get it out in time. Also, I found this chapter to be a little boring, but it is necessary to give the back-story this way, as well as introducing the characters, so that my story doesn't try to cover a year long struggle, and end up being 100 chapters long! Hopefully, my next chapter will be far more interesting.


	3. These Wounds That Never Heal

Full summary: This is the first story of a series, known as the Earthblade series. The story is about how a new keyblade master (OC) faces his first challenge, on his home world, Earth. It will also detail how he came to poses the keyblade, in a later chapter. Sorry, but the only Kingdom Hearts characters in this installment are the heartless, the rest are OCs.

Disclaimer: I do not own the heartless. I do not own the keyblade. I do own Andrew, Devlin, Maria, and all my other OCs. I own Shadowhaven. I doubt I own Earth. I think I own just about everything else too.

A/N: Hello again. Sorry about the delay in updates, It feels like its been forever since my last update. I am actually feeling a little discouraged, only one person has dropped by and taken the time to write a review (thanks for the second review b the way)! I do not care if you love it, hate it, or think it just needs to be improved a little; I need you people to tell me! This will be the first chapter that is actually part of the story, and will most likely show exactly the style in which subsequent chapters will be written.

**Chapter 2: These Wounds That Never Heal**

The young child pressed a button, and the machine stopped recording. He wondered for a moment, _is there even any point, no one can hear me._ Either way, this would be his last Journal, no mere words could describe the horror he was going through, and it seemed pointless to continue to try.

The wind blew through his black hair, as he jumped from building to building, and anyone else would have probably reminisced on how it looked like someone had tried to cut it off with a sword, as indeed it had been. However, their was no room in this young man's heart for concern about his hair, nothing mattered, except his overwhelming hatred toward the heartless, the insatiable thirst for their blood, the need to keep them from hurting anyone else. His sharp eyes, once hindered by a need for glasses, noticed a slight movement of the shadows down on empty streets below. Like a hawk, he instantly dove down from the two-story apartment complex he had been jumping along, and draws his weapon on his prey. Before he can even register what type of heartless it was he was destroying, it ends its time in this world as a black mist, which slowly disappeared into thin air. It didn't matter though, all that mattered was that it was a heartless, and it was gone.

"Andrew!" a voice, some distance away cried out. The child jumped up onto a building, and looked out behind him. His heart sank to a deep sense of dread, for it was his friend Devlin who had called him. Ever since the heartless had knocked out the cell phone transmitter, the teammates had been having trouble staying in contact with each other. The fact that Devlin had come to him with a message, and abandoned his routine rounds of the outer city to come meet him suggested that something big had happened. On top of that, Devlin had come and not Maria, so either Maria was in trouble, or this was a mater so urgent that it required Devlin's speed to fetch the keymaster. Neither one appealed to the boy. Regardless, he was giving Devlin his full attention.

It was a matter of moments before his friend got to his building. Upon landing on the apartment (Devlin also jumped from building to building to travel) he immediately did is best to proclaim his message, despite being thoroughly out of breath. "The heartless, they're surrounding a defenseless family." The fact that Devlin could hardly breathe and the sweat pouring from his face both suggested that he had used up all his stamina getting here, the situation was urgent.

The keyblade master casts cure on his comrade to relieve his fatigue, and they immediately set off to their destination. "You couldn't deal with this yourself?" inquired the boy, talking as they moved.

"Theirs millions of the buggers! No one could possibly deal with something like this alone; we need to take on this one together!" replied his comrade.

"Where is Maria?"

"She stayed behind to keep an eye on the heartless. We agreed that if push comes to shove, she better start the party without us."

"Idiot! She can't handle that on her own!"

"Some one's a little protective now, aint they? She doesn't have to handle it without use, just, you know, hold them off till we get their."

"They'll kill her!"

"No they won't, were almost there, just a few more minutes away."

A few minutes latter, the two warriors were their, as promised. To Andrew's great relief, Maria was still on the roof squatting down and peering over the edge, spying on the biggest group of heartless he had ever seen! They landed in a squat next to her, ready to receive her report.

"What have the enemy been up to Maria?" inquired Andrew in a voice of monotone seriousness.

"Its odd really, they haven't seemed to taken any direct interest in the speculated targets. In stead, they've surrounded them, and are facing in an outward direction, as if trying to protect them from someone."

"They're expecting us!" cried an outraged Devlin. "It is an ambush! We should just leave them, the heartless aint going to attack that family, and if we come to their rescue we'll be playing right into their hands!"

"No!" exclaimed an outraged Andrew. "There is no force on Earth capable of keeping that many heartless from attacking those three forever, we have to save them!" Andrew always got incredibly emotional when it comes to the heartless, ever since the disaster. "Maria, have you counted the enemy?"

"Yes sir, there are precisely three million four hundred and seventy two thousand nine hundred and fifty nine shadows. Thus far, no reinforcements have shown up."

For a moment, Andrew reminisced on the old Maria. She would never have thought to count the enemy, never have used terms like reinforcements, and would never have referred to him as sir. She had always been a gentle, kindhearted soul, the war had changed her. He supposed it had changed him too; he had become cold, and uncaring, detached to everything but the situation at hand. The only person who it hadn't affected was probably Devlin; he had been trained to deal with war his whole life. Andrew could only hope that the scars of war could go away once it was all over.

His gaze wondered to the keyblade, which had summoned in preparation for the upcoming battle. It was only then that it fully dawned on him that the war was never going to end, not for him. It had become his destiny to travel to the other worlds, and fight the heartless there too. The past year had been full of conflict and emotional turmoil, and the rest of his life was going to be the same exact way. He couldn't ask his friends to do the same.

"Sir?" asked Maria. That got Andrew to snap out of it. "What would you have us do, do we fight?"

"Yes, we will fight."

A/N: Review, please? If you can not tell by now, this story does not revolve around the physical challenges the heartless have created. The real center of the story is the inner conflict created inside of Andrew by the war, and how it affects him and his friends. I hope to get the next chapter up soon, but no promises.


	4. Their Is No Such Thing As God

Full summary: This is the first story of a series, known as the Earthblade series. The story is about how a new keyblade master (OC) faces his first challenge, on his home world, Earth. It will also detail how he came to poses the keyblade, in a later chapter. Sorry, but the only Kingdom Hearts characters in this installment are the heartless, the rest are OCs.

Disclaimer: I do not own the heartless. I do not own the keyblade. I do own Andrew, Devlin, Maria, and all my other OCs. I own Shadowhaven. I doubt I own Earth. I think I own just about everything else too.

A/N: I hope to get more reviews. I got this urge to write all of the sudden, and I am now writing this chapter immediately after finishing Chapter 2. If anyone gave me constructive criticism, I'll give you credit in the next chapter. Read on to continue the adventure of Andrew.

**Chapter 3: Theirs No Such Thing As God**

The battle was going poorly. As soon as they had jumped down to protect the family of three, the heartless had lunged. They were dropping like flies, but for every one they killed, at least two more appeared. The family was out of harms way, Devlin had gotten them out of there when the fight began. However, the heartless hadn't been chasseing him, the family wasn't the target. Now there was no chance of them escaping, and, even with Devlin returned to the battlefield, things were looking grim.

"We're bein' overrun be heartless, with no chance of escape!" cried out Devlin's voice, almost drowned out by the sound of his blades as they sliced through a shadow, destroying it instantly. Almost desperately Devlin asked, "Andrew, got a plan as to how we're going to get out of this predicament?"

Unfortunately, Andrew's mind came up blank. Normally he was an exceedingly excellent tactician, and not that he'd brag about it or anything, but he was a genius. However, they were surrounded by millions of heartless, completely cut off from any escape rout, and his friends were fatigued to the point were Devlin could hardly lift his sword. To put it simply, they needed a miracle.

A simple little shadow jumped out of the blue toward him, but was instantly caught in mid air by the face. It was then a simple matter to tighten his grip; the heartless was instantly crushed between his fingers. He was begging to feel the affects of the fight wearing him out too. Even the keyblade master gets tired after fighting heartless for over an hour; it was a miracle his friends were still standing!

Apparently they wouldn't stand for much longer, a shadow casually attacked Devlin from behind, and he was too weak to stop it! It passed from one side of his chest, and out the other, like a hot knife through butter! The ground was instantly stained by a huge spatter of blood, redder than the belt on Devlin's waist. The color began to drain from his face, as he dropped to the ground, the whole world seeming to be in slow motion, and his swords clattered next to him, perhaps never to cut down a heartless ever again. Andrew knew that if his best friend were to live to fight another day, he needed healing right now, but he had not a drop of magic in his veins!

"Maria, Devlin needs-"

"I don't have any MP left sir, there is nothing I can do," she muttered, on the verge of tears.

"Devlin!"

_"Oh mighty God, have mercy on this poor child_

_If it is your will, bring life back to his heart_

_Heal the wounds the minions of Satan have inflicted upon him_

_So he may have a second chance to fight, to preserve your law!"_

Andrew had never heard this man's voice before, and he looked beyond the crowed of heartless just over his shoulder, to find a old man in the robes of a priest kneeling in prayer. He didn't know what good it would do, and it defied all logic and reason, but for a moment, he felt reassured by this man's presence, and even believed that this feeble old man might be able to save his friend.

All of the sudden, clouds darkened the sky, raining not, but still thunder sounded in every direction. Then, two of the clouds parted, and from the space between them, a ray of light shined on Devlin's near death body.

"What magic is thi-?"

Andrew never finished that sentence, for at that moment, a bolt of lightning raced down the ray of light, striking his friend's body. Before he could even cry out in outrage, Devlin began to float, and arcs of electricity seemed to flow through his body. Where the arcs went, wounds closed, eventually leaving nothing left, not even a scar, even his robes were fixed!

_"Thank you God for hearing my prayer_

_Permit me one more request_

_Vanquish these demons, for spawn of the Devil they are_

_And save your humble servants, permit no harm to come to the children!"_

At that moment Devlin's body began to glow with an almost blinding radiance. His body straightened, and he held his arms up at his sides. He slowly lowered to the ground, and softly landed on his two feet. The heartless seamed to quake in fear, not even daring to look into the light. Immediately upon landing, his eyes shot, open, glowing with the brightest light yet, and swords flew into his open hand. The heartless, as if afraid of some greater power, attempted to flee, and Devlin just smiled, and shot forward.

He seemed to move, quick as lightning, in every direction at once, obliterating the malicious monstrosities every where he went. Within seconds, the enemies were gone, millions of tortured souls, released by death, and no more came. Devlin stopped moving. The luminescence of his skin began to fade, and he lost consciousness, although their were doubts in Andrew's mind as to whether or not he had ever woken up at all. Before Devlin could collapse in a heap on the ground, Maria rushed over to catch him, and check his vital signs.

"His pulse is normal sir, he should be alright."

"Good, now mister," Andrew said, turning to face the old man, "would you mind telling me who you are, and what the hell just happened?"

The man replied, "Blessed lord full of grace, thank you for your guidance." He proceeded to perform the sign of the cross, and then address the puzzled keyblade mater's questions. "My name is Marco; I run the Shadowhaven church of refugees. As to what just happened, I prayed for your safety, and God protected you. It is as simple as that."

"Please kind sir," Maria's voice pleaded," our friend here is still badly injured, and requires a place to rest. Could you lead us to a suitable location?"

"Yes, yes, of course I can! I'll take you with me, back to the church."

Knowing Maria couldn't carry Devlin, Andrew picked him up, hanging him over one shoulder. Not exactly a comfortable, or even an honorable, position, but it was effective. Marco led the trio to hiss church, and as they walked on in silence, Andrew tried to figure out what it was that had just occurred.

They arrived at the church about thirty minutes latter, and it turned out to be located on the outskirts of the badlands. Devlin was still unconscious, so they did there best to find him a bed.

As Marco began to open one of the door, Andrew had to ask, "Marco, what is it that you do here?"

"Simple, we provide food and shelter to those who have lost their homes to heartless attacks," and with that, he opened the doors.

Their was a loud murmuring going on around the inside of the church. It was a sad sight really; Andrew took a look around, and saw not one happy face. The people were covered in dirt from head to toe, no water could be spared to bath in, and almost everyone wore rags. They all looked like they had indeed lost everything, and their faces wore a masks of lost hope. However, it was the ones not wearing rags, the ones that were not covered in dirt that were the most painful to look at. They were the ones that had just lost everything, the horrors of their tragic past still lay fresh in their mind, and it showed.

The murmur was not a happy one, it was merely a way for those who still had at least one person they loved still alive to dull the pain, whittling away the hours of the day with meaningless conversations. However, even the dull, hopeless atmosphere this generated was better than what came next. Everyone just stopped what they were doing, and stared at the weapon that was still in Andrew's hand. The worst part of it was, these faces that stared at him filled with hope, and deep down inside, the young warrior didn't believe he could live up to their expectations, and it scared him more than ten million heartless.

"Are their any beds free? This young man is injured," stated Marco.

One of the men got up from his bench, saying, "Anything for a friend of the keyblade master!" and the feeling of dread in Andrew's heart grew worse.

As they laid down Devlin, Andrew couldn't take it anymore, and had to ask, "Why? Why take in all these people, isn't it hard enough to survive as it is?"

"It is God's will that we serve our neighbors, and protect our community."

"There is no such thing as God!"

The silence in the room changed from one of reverence, to one of dread. The two central objects of hope for the people in this room were about to have an argument, and the boy had threatened the other man's faith, his most cherished possession.

After a while Marco simply replied, "You do not believe?"

At this, Andrew exploded, "How can I believe in God! No merciful God would let demons like the heartless exist! I've seen Satan old man, and he is no devil. He is the darkness, and he us! He is the heartless! Compared to them, your god and your devil are nothing more than fairytales!"

Having said more than he dared to say, the young child stormed out of the church, leaving a bewildered crowd behind him.

An hour latter, Marco came out and found Andrew sitting on the front steps of the church. He walked over sat down, and said nothing. Eventually, Andrew had to ask, "What do you want?"

"I just thought you could use the company."

"Well keep on thinking old man."

Marco ignored Andrew and continued to sit there with him, and eventually Andrew sighed, and said, "Listen, old man. I'm sorry, about what I said, I didn't mean it."

"No young one, you did, and that's okay. It doesn't make a difference to me. Now come on in, you could use the rest."

"Why would you do that for me?"

"Because we are all equal in the eyes of God and because I truly believe that you may be human kind's last hope."

A/N: I'm going to end this chapter now. The next chapter is going to be gruesome by the way. Please review. Oh and I am stepping up the rating, because the amount of detail in this story makes scenes of death and violence very gruesome, and well, you will see.


	5. An Agent of Death

Full summary: This is the first story of a series, known as the Earthblade series. The story is about how a new keyblade master (OC) faces his first challenge, on his home world, Earth. It will also detail how he came to poses the keyblade, in a later chapter. Sorry, but the only Kingdom Hearts characters in this installment are the heartless, the rest are OCs.

Disclaimer: I do not own the heartless. I do not own the keyblade. I do own Andrew, Devlin, Maria, and all my other OCs. I own Shadowhaven. I doubt I own Earth. I think I own just about everything else too.

A/N: Warning, chapter ahead contains scenes of death beyond the scope of the heartless. Viewer discretion is advised. The first half of this chapter is written in Maria's perspective, and then it switches back to Andrew's perspective.

**Chapter 4: I Am an Agent of Death**

A loud noise woke Maria up in the middle of her slumber that night. She woke up, groggy at first, unable to comprehend what it was. The others seemed to have woken up too, as made apparent by Andrew's cries of, "What the hell was that? Keep it quiet down there, we're trying to sleep!"

Still only half awake, a new noise drifted into the tired girl's ears, a sound she had grown to be intimately familiar with. It was the sound of panic, anarchy, desperation! Someone, make that a lot of someones, were screaming downstairs. Suddenly, the first noise sounded again, only this time it repeated a lot more quickly. She had never heard this sound before, what was it?

Suddenly it dawned on her; she had heard that sound before, though only on TV. "Guys, someone is firing a gun downstairs!"

After the series of gunshots ended, their was nothing but silence, quiet as the grave, you might say. Devlin was the first out of his bed, "That's not good!" He was also the first to run down the stairs, followed by Andrew, both of them with their swords drawn.

Now wide-awake, Maria quickly grabbed her staff, and rushed after them. She heard another two gunshots, and thought to herself, _I hope I am not too late._ It took her a few minutes to get down from the clock tower, where they had been sleeping to the main room where the noise had come from.

She was just running in, and caught sight of the cause of the disturbance. A man was standing over a dead woman, and her young child. "What the hell did you do that for?" cried an outraged Devlin.

Maria froze in here tracks, the entire room was a puddle of blood, and the family was not the only victims, everyone was dead! This was the first time she had ever seen a dead body before, despite a year at war.

"Why you ask. Well you see, I think the better question is why do you deserve to live?" The man was wearing an expensive looking tuxedo, with a tie on his neck, and a rose on his chest, all in all, looking like he was about to go to a wedding, or a funeral. He had a handgun in his right hand, clearly indicated there were no funerals to be had where he was going. He used his left hand to adjust his tie, and held the gun to Andrew's head.

Andrew just stood their, frozen. _Why don't you move? _she thought desperately to herself._ Why can't _I_ move?_

"Get away from him!" yelled Devlin. He jumped forth; a sword raised but was easily batted away by his enemy, with one hand!

Andrew seemed to be in a trance, just kneeling their, unmoving, despite the gun raised level with his head.

"You going to run?" asked the killer.

"No, please, end it. I've been wishing I were dead for over a year."

"So be it." Replied the killer in a solemn tone. He began to pull the trigger.

Time seemed to slow down for the frozen girl. _Why don't you move? Get up damn it, you can't die here, we've been through to much together! _

"Get up!"

_That voice_, thought the youth. _That's a reason to live!_

The mad man had almost pulled the trigger, and Andrew didn't waste another second. He did not even have time to register it in his mind, one minute he was kneeling their, then the next thing he knew, he was on his feet, keyblade in his outstretched arm. Their were shards of metal falling to the ground at his feet, and the psychopath was holding the broken remains of a handgun in his hand.

"Devlin, take Maria and go!" shouted the boy.

Devlin, who had crashed into a bookshelf and was just now getting it out from on top of him, quickly responded to his friends command. However, Maria dodged Devlin's attempts. "You almost got yourself killed! You are not-" but at that point Devlin caught her, and within a few leaps, he was already a mile away.

"So you decided to fight back, admirable."

"Who the hell are you?" asked the angered Andrew.

"I am Death's loyal slave, as are we all, no more, no less."

"So, do you, or do you not, have any regrets over what you did?" replied the boy with his key in his hand, using a level tone.

"None whatsoever."

"Then may your master claim his slave!" and with that, he rushed.

He swung the kingdom key, but his target merely dodged, an unsuccessful series of thrusts ensued, followed by a casting of thunder, to no prevail. _Is this man untouchable?_

"You swing your sword like a drunken man, and your spells are more predictable than the old mans."

"Old man, what have you done with Marco?"

That's when the child made his first fatal mistake; he looked around the room for the old priest. He found him lying in a pool of blood, his necked twisted 180 degrees to far.

His assailant didn't miss his chance, and Andrew found himself on the ground, face first, with no idea what had happened. Then the pain came, rushing from his neck, to his brain. He knew then that the attacker had jabbed his neck from behind.

"AHHHHHHH!"

The man looked shocked, as if his prey had never screamed before. "You are resilient! That punch should have killed you."

"How could you do this? The old man, all these people, how could you?" He was indeed resilient, but he was still only just able to stand up against the pain, in order to do so quite literally in real life. "No regrets huh." At this he completely turned around to face his foe. "You heartless bastard!"

A look of rage came over the nearly emotionless psycho's face. "Don't you ever call me that, anything but that!"

Fear came across the boy's face, like none he ha ever dreamed possible. _Here he comes_.

The man with no name rushed over to the child in the blink of an eye, swiftly sent his victim into the air with an uppercut, and kicked him while he was still in the air, right through the church roof. Only then did the pain catch up, and the child once again screamed. His enemy took a great leap, through the roof of the church, over the child, and alternated between punches and kicks, his body a whirlwind of death, until they were about to hit the ground, where he finished with a head butt to the stomach, sending his victim mercilessly crashing to the ground. The impact created a spectacular crater, and caused a tremor so great the church caved in around them.

When the dust settled, Andrew was still at the bottom of the crater, while his killer was still at the top. His back was broken in more places than he could count, but that wasn't what was killing him, he was losing too much blood. His keyblade had long since vanished, but it didn't matter, he could hardly think strait anyway, and would be unable to concentrate enough to cast cure anyway. He didn't care; he didn't have enough blood flowing to his brain to care. _I cannot beat this man. I need more power. Nothing I can do I suppose, I only regret…_

"You didn't fight well but you fought bravely. Die now knowing their was nothing you could do to save those people. Die knowing that you will soon meet your friends in heaven. Die knowing you were too weak to save them."

_No! You can't kill them. Maria, I won't let you hurt her!_

A voice sounded in his head, one he had heard before.

_**An act of selfless bravery**_

_**A death undone**_

_**Now is the hour of judgment!**_

Ten miles away, Devlin looked at a cloud of dust, and saw his friend was in trouble.

"Devlin for the last time, get me back to the- what's happening!"

Devlin looked down in horror, as his body finished fading away.

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, hope I didn't keep you waiting too long! From now on expect an update every Friday. Also, in return for waiting so patiently, I promise the next three updates will contain two chapters!

**Announcement!**

From now on, we will be running a new service in which readers may now directly ask the characters questions about what is happening, has happened, or what is happening. Just ask the character a question **by name **and I will post their response at the end of the following chapter. If you want to ask a character that doesn't exist by name in the story, such as a random civilian, just give them a clear title, such as Random Civilian, for the random civilian.

Until next update, see you around.


	6. A Brave Heart

Full summary: This is the first story of a series, known as the Earthblade series. The story is about how a new keyblade master (OC) faces his first challenge, on his home world, Earth. It will also detail how he came to poses the keyblade, in a later chapter. Sorry, but the only Kingdom Hearts characters in this installment are the heartless, the rest are OCs.

Disclaimer: I do not own the heartless. I do not own the keyblade. I do own Andrew, Devlin, Maria, and all my other OCs. I own Shadowhaven. I doubt I own Earth. I think I own just about everything else too.

A/N: Chapter one of my two chapters update for today. Andrew kicks ass with his new power.

**Chapter 5: A Brave Heart**

_What is this power? I feel, better! My strength is returning, growing…_

Feeling better was an understatement. The murderer looked at hiss newest victim in amazement, as the boy began to glow. He began to levitate, floating in the air, as if gravity had just decided not to touch him anymore. He had stopped bleeding, a fact not lost on Death's humble slave. His spine was still broken in at least ten places, not to mention several other bones. That glimmer of hope didn't last long. As the boy reached the zenith of his ascent, there was a loud CRACK!

"What the hell?" cried a surprised man, starring at his enemy. He seemed to have no clue what that noise had been, and was that boy's back stretched a little straighter? The noise repeated itself, and this time, he caught movement in his eye, it was all to clear now. The child's bones were snapping themselves back in place.

CRACK!  
CRACK!  
CRACK!

In mere moments, the fight would begin again. It wasn't just his bones that were healing, his cuts had mended, minor swelling that had started forming above his left eye was gone, and even the sweat from their previous encounter had vanished. He was finally back in fighting shape. The boy's eyes snapped open. The entire process had only taken three seconds.

_Aren't I dead?_ That was all the boy could think, shocked by the events just as much as his assailant. _Maybe I already am dead? I don't feel dead. This power coursing through my veins, I feel its warmth, giving me strength, more than I've ever had before._ He looked at the other man, whose arm seemed to be slowly moving into his suit, perhaps to pull out a weapon. _Lets see if this power is really so strong!_

He rushed at his opponent, who didn't seem to move at all. Circling around for a back attack, he tried to summon a keyblade. He got two. _No time to think!_ He lashed out at the mysterious man, who had only just started turning around, _so slow._ He did not wait for the man to catch up. His blows land with a clank, on the knife in the man's hand.

After a couple of strikes, Andrew gave up this attempt, and jumped over the man with his new high jump ability to try to get another attack from behind.

"What are you?" shouted his startled enemy.

The man was beginning to turn around faster; the boy was developing a predictable pattern. _Why did his hair turn red?_

As the man raised his knife to block the next barrage of strikes, the boy noticed his reflection in the knife blade. His hair had turned a bright crimson. _I'm in Valor Form!_ That explained everything!

He decided that it was time to really push himself.

Time seamed to stop. His heart raced as power rushed through every inch of his body. He was confident. He knew the battle was over.

He couldn't see his enemy anymore. This was bad. He held his knife in a defensive stance, praying to God that the child would attack from the front. _Not that he'd answer a prayer from a man like me._

Maybe he was lucky, or maybe their really was a God up their in heaven, answering his prayers. If so, he was a cruel god. The man felt a blow strike his knife blade, and saw it shatter, felt it as some of the shards seemed to float there for a matter of moments, and then, as if tossed by an invisible man, they accelerated, like bullets, piercing his heart. He desperately struggled to hold on to his god forsaken life, as he watched the child reappear, his hair back to its normal shade of black.

Andrew knew a lot about ballistics. He had picked that up from his father. Specifically, he knew a lot about aiming and shooting. He knew that those shards had just missed that man's heart, instead, piercing the aorta. This gave the man a bit more time to live, to suffer. He wanted that man to suffer, needed him to suffer. But more importantly, he needed to know…

"Why?"

"Excuse me?" replied the man, breathing heavily.

"I need to know, why? Why kill all these people? I want a straight answer this time."

"I gave it to you!"

The assailant gave a sigh. "The truth is, no one deserves to live. They most certainly didn't, they're dead!"

"Just because you were stronger than the old man doesn't mean-"

"The old man? He isn't who I was referring to. I'm talking about my family."

This made Andrew's heart, which had began to slow down, started going faster than ever. A tear rolled of his cheek his face. _His family_

"The heartless came, in greater numbers than before."

_We wear hiding in our house, the windows boarded up, the door barricaded. It didn't matter though, and we knew it. Any one of those hell spawn was free to appear from thin air within our house any time it felt like it. We were sitting in the dark, me, my wife, and our only child. My son, how old was he, three months, two? Either way, he had spent the last month of his life crying, locked away, with the rest of us, in the dark. In the dark._

_Was it only month? It felt like we hadn't seen the light of day for an eternity. Food was running low, and to feed my family, I went hungry. It had been a week since my last meal, and I was so weak. But it didn't matter; I had to feed my wife. At least the sinks provided plenty of water._

"Eat something," _she would always tell me. Maybe I should have listened to her, but that would have meant we had to venture outside, into the chaotic world, where death eagerly awaited us. No one dared such a thing; we would all rather starve to death than walk right into his grasp._

_I had been dispelling fear, making promises I didn't know if I could keep. She had asked me,_ "If you don't eat, what will happen if the heartless attack?" _I told her, "_I promise to protect you, no matter what."

_That night, a massive heartless attack occurred. Thousands of the little buggers appeared in the basement. I readied my knife at the top of the stairs, slashing heartless as the came up. I told my wife, "_Take our son, go!"_ She ran, but the heartless must have sensed she was easy pray, because they shot toward her, knocking me over in the process. To this day, I don't know why they spared me, and killed her._

_I left my house, still just strong enough to get past our barricade. I walked as close to death as I could, but he rejected me. I eventually made my way to a McDonalds. I wasn't going to bother going in, if death wouldn't have me then I was going to force myself upon him, but a man in a black cloak beckoned me inside. He radiated a powerful aura, so I decided to join him._

_The place was abandoned, but plenty of food was left behind, and apparently the stranger could cook, because there were about three burgers in front of me when I sat down. _"I'm not hungry," _I told him, but he didn't respond._

"You didn't fail them you know." _He had told me, out of no where._

"Excuse me?"

"They failed themselves. In this and all worlds, there is but one unbreakable rule. The strong live and the weak die. It's not your fault your family wasn't strong enough."

"How dare you-"

"You are strong though. You must be, you survived. I can sense you want to die. It won't happen you know. You're too strong; you must find someone strong enough to kill you. Only then will you die."

_He disappeared then, as if he was never there. You know what the sad thing is, I believed his words. I searched, searched for the man that could kill me. Yet deep in my heart, I would always know that it was my fault that my wife had died; it was my fault Maria was dead._

Andrew was crying quiet uncontrollably by the time the man said this. He stopped that instant though, stunned too greatly. A horrible premonition came over him, he knew the answer to what he was about to ask, but he had to ask anyway.

"What's your name?"

"My name? My name is, Andrew," and with that, he drew his final breath.

The young Andrew's mind went numb. He realized by pure instinct that the fight was over; it was time to go meet Devlin, and Maria.

Devlin rematerialized just in time to realize it was starting to rain.

"What happened Devlin?"

Fortunately Devlin remembered everything that had happened, up to the point where Andrew left Valor Form, and shared his knowledge with Maria. "So Andrew should arrive any minute."

It took longer than expected for Andrew to arrive, and it was raining very hard by then. Regardless, it was painfully obvious that he was crying.

"Hey, what happened?"

"He's dead, that man, is dead!"

"I know man, I was their. Heartless bastard got what was coming to him."

"Don't call him that!"

This time Maria answered. "What's wrong, Andrew."

He instantly began to cry harder, the shock beginning to wear off. He fell to his hands and knees, slamming the ground with his right fist. "He was just like me!"

Character responses:

No questions submitted

A/N: Sorry, I cannot submit the next chapter tonight, it must wait until tomorrow. Next time, the origins of the keyblade master, when did the keyblade chose him, and just what was the disaster?


	7. Pain

Full summary: This is the first story of a series, known as the Earthblade series. The story is about how a new keyblade master (OC) faces his first challenge, on his home world, Earth. It will also detail how he came to poses the keyblade, in a later chapter. Sorry, but the only Kingdom Hearts characters in this installment are the heartless, the rest are OCs.

Disclaimer: I do not own the heartless. I do not own the keyblade. I do own Andrew, Devlin, Maria, and all my other OCs. I own Shadowhaven. I doubt I own Earth. I think I own just about everything else too.

**Chapter 6: Pain**

Andrew explained to his friends how the other Andrew had come to be a serial killer.

"That's, a little creepy, him having the same name as you, his late wife having the same name as me…"

Devlin remarked, "Very eerie how similar his past is to yours as well."

"My past." Andrew had stopped crying, though it continued to rain. He grew silent at the mention of his past, a silence brought on by the pain he still had not shared with his friends.

"No need to talk sir, we know how painful this memory is to-"

"No you don't. How could you, you've never been through what I've been through."

"I never had any parents either sir."

He remembered that quiet well. She had never known her parents; she had lived in a foster home all her life.

"You don't know what its like. You never had a family. You didn't lose it. You never had to live every day knowing that you could have saved them, but you were too much of a coward!"

He sighed, "I never wanted to tell you…

_It was a little over a year ago, the day the heartless first came to our world. I had been playing, ironically enough, Kingdom Hearts Two. They came up from behind, I didn't even see them._

"Get down Andrew!"

_Years of training had allowed me to react instantly to my fathers command. I quickly ducked, as gun shots went over my head. I saw a dark mist appear over my shoulder, and hesitantly turned around._

"No way."

_I couldn't believe my eyes. Enemies that I had just been massacring in a videogame, they had become real. My dad was fending the off with a SHPD standard hand gun. As I began recovering from the shock, Dad issued an order._ "Andrew, get your mother, and run!"

_Considerably calm, given the situation, I ran like mad past my dad, into the kitchen. I grabbed an eight inch kitchen knife, ran back out, and into my parent's room._

_It was eleven pm, and my mom was asleep. That wouldn't fly, so I quickly woke her up, _"Mom, the heartless,"_ I panted, _"coming, must, run."

_Still sleepy, my mom rubbed her eyes._ "What time is it?"

"Heartless, come-on already!"

"What, heartless? Did you have nightmare?"

_Just as I was trying to come up with a way to convince her that I wasn't having a nightmare, she saw the knife in my hands. Her eyes widened, and she looked like she was about to ask me something, when another burst of gun fire from the other room brought her to her senses._

_Without saying a word we tried to leave. Quickly assessing the situation, I realized that the only way out of the room safely was through a window. Luckily we were on the ground level, so I jumped through the window, beckoning my mom to follow. I had plenty of cuts from the glass, but that didn't matter. What did matter was the heartless surrounding the house. I had never seen so many yellow eyes starring at me, chilling me down to my very soul. No way was my lousy kitchen knife saving me from them. I quickly looked for an alternative rout._

"H-Heartless," _stuttered my mother. Then I found what was hopefully our salvation. A sewer, we had to escape into the sewer. Rushing over to the tunnel that would lead to either another infestation, or our salvation, I quickly managed to lift the cap off, and beckoned to my mother, who I was desperately trying to save. She complied._

"Ladies first," _and with no time to argue with me, she went down first. Just as she sank beyond sight within the darkness, I heard a scream coming from within the house._

"Dad."

_No longer daring to stand there, I quickly descended, holding the knife in my mouth by the handle, meeting my mother, who had been waiting down below. I saw a signal tear falling from her eyes. It was enough to tell me she had heard Dad's scream. I was on the verge of tears myself, but there was no time. We both nodded, a silent promise to shed our tears latter._

_As we ran, there was a thump behind us. They had come._

_A look behind me confirmed my worst fears, yellow eyes._

_We kept running, what else could we do? It was no use. I saw a light up ahead. Someone had lifted the cap off another entrance up ahead. With the heartless ready to pounce at even the slightest delay, I knew that this would be my only chance to escape._

_I had begun to forget my mother, lost as I was in survival instinct. Easily outrunning her, I bolted toward the exit. I was already halfway up the ladder, when a thump and a scream reminded me who else was there. I looked down, my newest fear confirmed. My mom had tripped. I held the hand holding the knife out in desperation. I threw it at the heartless that was coming closest to her. There was suddenly a flash of light, and the knife was gone, replaced with another surprise. It had become the keyblade._

_**A staff of wonder and ruin,**_

_**A sword of terrible destruction,**_

_**A shield to repel all,**_

_**You may earn this power.**_

_The new weapon spun, struck down the target, and returned to my hand, in a move I vaguely recognized as strike raid. I looked at my Mom's ankle, already knowing by her face she was in pain. It was clearly useless, twisted beyond the point an ankle should be twisted. She was doomed_

_Unless I helped her._

_Cold fear gripped my heart, I struggled with myself, but the victor was already decided. My less noble thoughts won, I looked down upon her soon to be carcass, and finished climbing the ladder to the salvation of the damned. Her voice rang out to the heavens, _"Andrew, help!!!"_ Then there was only pain, and her screams. They made the bitter sound of death, a death so horrible, even your very soul felt her pain. They dragged on, or perhaps it was only the guilt that carried on through that silent night. The sound would never leave my ears, I ran for it, ran until the screams ended, but they never did._

_And still I run._

"Those screams still haunt my every moment Maria. My dreams are nothing but a web of nightmares, reliving that pain, forever cursed to know I could have prevented it."

Devlin and Maria seemed to avoid his gaze, as they attempted to soak this new information in. It was a lot to take in. Andrew had always told the story as if he had been unable to save them. Part of them wanted to believe he was lying now, but they knew he wasn't.

Maria was the first to meet his gaze, relief flooded Andrew, her eyes showed confident loyalty. "I don't care if you handed them to a heartless on a silver platter, sir. You still saved my life, I will follow you for it, no questions asked!"

Devlin merely nodded in agreement, and asked, "So what will you do now?"

Andrew hesitated, there was news to tell, and it was another failure. "Despite my efforts to persuade them, no one would abandon their homes. They abandoned their lives instead. There is no one left in the badlands, the victims tonight were the last of them. The heartless will leave the badlands in a matter of days to pursue new prey, if we're lucky. They will attempt to devour what's left of the city. How many survivors are left in the rest of town?"

"At most, a third of what was in the badlands, and over much more wide an area sir."

Andrew spent not but a moment formulating a plan. "Playing the great defenders of mankind hasn't worked out well for us so far. That's because we've been playing defense. Well no more! There is no way we'll be able to reasonably defend this large an area against the full strength of the heartless. So it's time to switch stratagems! From now on, full focus on offense, we fight together."

"And what is our first step?" inquired Devlin.

"The heartless were definitely waiting for us yesterday. They have a leader. I believe that is this same leader who created the shield surrounding the town. If we take him out, the heartless won't be as big a threat, and the citizens can escape."

"Right!" the others proclaimed on unison.

"This man will be human, and strong enough to control heartless. Fighting another human is a whole different level."

Devlin merely replied, "I was trained to fight humans."

Maria added, "This man must be stopped."

Andrew smiled; his friends were with him all the way.

Character Responses:

None sent in.

A/N: Next chapter, the enemy makes itself known, but is he just too powerful for the keyblade to kill?


	8. For Better or Worse

Full summary: This is the first story of a series, known as the Earthblade series. The story is about how a new keyblade master (OC) faces his first challenge, on his home world, Earth. It will also detail how he came to poses the keyblade, in a later chapter. Sorry, but the only Kingdom Hearts characters in this installment are the heartless, the rest are OCs.

Disclaimer: I do not own the heartless. I do not own the keyblade. I do own Andrew, Devlin, Maria, and all my other OCs. I own Shadowhaven. I doubt I own Earth. I think I own just about everything else too.

A/N: Sorry for the delay. I'm going to be honest; I've been playing Final Fantasy 12 this whole time. Good game. I'll try to update every Friday again now. Oh, and submitting reviews _does_ inspire me to type faster.

**For Better or Worse**

They were tracking their enemy, by tracking heartless. There was a very bizarre, unusual movement going on among the demonic ranks. The heartless seamed to be converging on a signal location, hopefully the location of their team leader.

The team follows in close pursuit, not daring to lose sight of their target for even a moment. As they were following the heartless, speed was of the essence. They were using the preferred method of travel, jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper. Maria, being incapable of this feat, had to ride on the back of the man who had enough energy to carry her, jump twenty feet into the air repeatedly, and not rest for hours, Andrew. He didn't mind.

Devlin looked as if he was deep in thought, which was a rare state for him to be in on a search and destroy mission. Thinking distracted you from pursuit of the target, the only thought he allowed to enter his head during these rare assignments was, is the target here? Andrew knew this. His friend's thoughts must have been very important.

"What are you thinking about Devlin?" asked Andrew, closing in on his friend to make talking easier.

Devlin began to look worried. "I have this bad feeling about yesterday."

Maria, still piggybacking on Andrew's back asked, "What about yesterday?"

"God saved my life."

"So? That means he's on our side right?" Andrew said this. Andrew of course didn't believe in God, but their was an unspoken rule between the three that Andrew was to act like he did, rather than adding _if he existed_ at the end of every sentence.

"God hasn't performed such a miracle in two thousand years. Is the situation that desperate? I think God would only perform this miracle to save Earth."

"Congratulations Devlin, looks like your destined to save the world," joked Andrew, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"That's another thing that scares me! Disregarding all sarcasm, what if your right? What if God just chose me to save Earth?"

"Would that be such a bad thing really?" asked Maria.

"Yes," came her reply, but from Andrew, not Devlin. "The keyblade, chose me to save our world, and I don't feel up to it, you know? I always wanted to have an adventure, save the world, be a hero. But reality isn't a fantasy, and in reality, I'm not sure I'm up to the task."

Devlin began talking again. "I always hid from the pressure, I'm not the one chosen to save an entire planet, and Andrew is. I'm just a sidekick. That's what I'd tell myself."

"Devlin," sighed Maria, "We're saving the world too, what you do, it's important!"

Andrew just laughed, "Note to self. Add relieving the responsibility from Devlin to my list of, Why I Want to Save the World. Tell you what Devlin," preposed Andrew, his voice more serious now, "That's exactly what I'm going to do! I'll save the world so you don't have to, ok?"

"Sounds great."

"Guys, the heartless!" shouted Maria. Throughout the conversation, Devlin and Andrew had ignored the heartless and just kept going strait. Good news is that was the way the heartless were going. Bad news is, the building they were on must have overlooked the destination, because it looked like every heartless in the city had surrounded it.

Maria quickly got off Andrew's back, and readied her staff. Devlin drew his swords, while Andrew summoned his keyblade. All hell was about to break loose.

Character Responses

None Submitted.

A/N: I meant to introduce the main villain in this chapter, but ended up typing out this instead. Devlin's personality just got a bit deeper than originally intended, but I like it. Hope you did too. Going to start typing the next chapter as soon as I post this one, good-bye.


	9. Hell

**Hell**

Things were going badly. The heartless just kept coming; Andrew didn't even know how long they had been fighting. He had been going in and out of Valor form countless times, no matter what he did, they just kept running up that wall.

He was currently in Valor form right now. Heartless just kept coming, like lambs to the slaughter. They weren't all shadows this time. Several of them were soldiers; there were even a few large bodies that managed to climb up the twenty story building. All of them fell before the mighty Valor form, but he had trouble with the large bodies when he wasn't in his most powerful state. He had to hit them from behind, and he had to hit them twice in his normal form. Combine that with the lack of super speed, and it was no wonder they were a menace.

_Speak of the Devil!_ He was beginning to revert to his normal state. Within moments, Devlin had returned to the battlefield. Unfortunately, the combined strength of the two was no where near the strength of the one at full power.

As if to make matters worse, there was a noise coming down the stairs. The stairs were behind a door, no one could truly see what was going on beyond it. The stairs led all the way down to the first floor, which led to the exit, which was surrounded be a sea of heartless. All signs pointed to, "Whatever's behind that door is not friendly guys. Devlin, Maria, get ready, here it comes!"

And come it did. The heartless had abandoned the idea of scaling the edges of the building, much faster to take the stairs. The heartless had confined themselves to a signal point of entry, but it was easier to get in through, and soon there were more of them than ever.

"Guys, here's the plan; we're going to cut our way through! We need to fight them in less confined conditions. They're getting smarter," he proclaimed, slicing a solider in the meantime. "Soon, they'll begin scaling the building again, **and** they'll still be taking the stairs. Attacking from without and within. We'll be crushed if we have to defend our battlefield boarder, and or battlefield center from invasion at the same time! So we cut our way through, get down to the street, and invade them instead!"

"Your plan is a suicide attack on all of them at once!" shouted Devlin.

"Yes,"

"Cool, count me in!"

"Maria?"

"I'll stay here, snipe them with a few thunder spells while you distract them down below."

"Usual plan won't work here Maria! There's too many, they'll easily spare a few to come kill you."

"I can defend myself!"

"And what good will you be to us? You wanted to help, attack head on with your magic, with us!"

Devlin had good reason to interrupt at this point. "That's all well and good Andrew, but how do plan on getting down some stairs, infested with heartless in such numbers that they've almost overwhelmed us already?"

"Simple."

Andrew allowed his keyblade to disappear. _I need a target_. He found a large body heartless. _Perfect._

He ran over to it, picked it up, and through it down the stairs. The heartless scattered like bowling pins.

They all ran down the stairs, even Maria, but as they turned a corner they encountered more heartless.

"I have three drive bars at my disposal. Valor Form!"

The transformation (and consequent disappearance of Devlin) was instantaneous. He felt a new wave of strength once again rush over his body. He ran, faster than the eye could see, down the stairs, past all the heartless…

"Andrew, don't leave me up here!"

…and they all exploded in the dark mist.

"Keep moving Maria."

Things basically went on like this for about ten more minutes, that's how long it took to fight their way out of a twenty story building infested with millions of demonic, evil little bastards (heartless). Andrew felt his muscles grow weaker as the drive left him. _Now the real challenge begins._

How to fight your way through a horde of demons of the heart so vast that you couldn't see past them? Keep in mind while answering this question that these things don't obey normal physics, over two million of them managed to fit inside the average vacant lot. Well if you're a keyblade master the answer is simple, swing keyblade A into heartless B.

After about an hour of A and B, Andrew knew his plan was not going to work. Then hope decided to come, and spit right in his eye.

The pain was beyond belief, but that wasn't the worst part. He couldn't decide what **was** the worst part, the fact that this pain came out of nowhere, that his friends didn't seem to be effected by it, or that the heartless had started to shriek in supernaturally horrid voices, leaving his ears to suffer almost as bad as his body. In moments he learned that the worst was yet to come. The pain stopped, and so did the shrieking. If he could have heard his friends trying to ask him what was wrong, or the sound of his own cries of pain over the previous noise, he would have realized that that too had stopped. The worst part had come.

One of the heartless jumped on top of another one, and they fused together! This seemed to trigger something, because the rest of the heartless had begun to dog pile on this one!

"Oh shit!"

The heartless had all fused together. At first it appeared to be just a gelatinous ball of dark energy. But soon enough, it began to take the form of a giant Dark Side! Dark Sides were pretty big to begin with, and this one looked to be at least ten times that size, and still growing! The semi sphere of dark energy had to stretch out of its way, and the buildings were no longer up to it's ankles by the time it stopped.

"Help!"

The not so jolly giant had been reaching toward one of the buildings, and a scream had issued forth from the zenith of the tower.

Andrew instantly sprang into action. He ran up the side of the building that he had just barley been able to exit alive. He looked over toward the other building, which was about a story shorter than the one he was on. On the top of it, a sixteen year old girl was swinging what appeared to be a dog leash at a group of shadows, no doubt summoned by the Dark Side. Behind her stood a boy, no more than eight years old, no less than seven. The girl was defending the child with her life!

The woman was doing well. The metallic end of her leash, normally used to hook it onto dog collars, allowed her strikes to connect with a dangerous force. Her specialty must have been crowd control, her hits killed every shadow she came into contact with, and her weapon had a long reach. But despite this, more came from no where. The Dark Side was summoning them at a fierce rate, or perhaps it was generating them. Andrew could feel the surge of power its very existence created. It was definitely powerful enough to generate the lesser heartless.

Andrew acted quickly. Backing off for a running start, he jumped to the other building. Taking out the heartless within seconds, he turned to the girl. "Are you alright?"

"You, you saved my life!"

"It's just my job."

"I'm Caroline, and this is Bernard."

"Pleasure to meet you," mumbled Andrew, in a distracted manner. He could tell that to Caroline, it must have sounded like he didn't care, but in reality, he was trying to figure out how on Earth he was going to kill this monster of a heartless.

"I can't kill it with these two in the way."

"These two! Don't talk as if we're not here!"

Andrew turned around, and for a minute, the girl wondered if she had better shut her big mouth.

"Devlin," he yelled down to his companion, "catch!"

Before she had had a chance to respond, Andrew had already picked her up, and thrown her down to Devlin. He caught her easily of course; this wasn't the first time they'd pulled this maneuver.

Andrew thought he saw his best friend blushing as he held the other teenager in his arms, but circumstances forced him to take action quickly. He quickly grabbed the boy, ignoring his screams of terror, and threw him too down to Devlin, just as the swordsman finished putting the woman down.

"You two need to run, now!"

Devlin watched as the two newcomers obeyed his suggestion, and began to survey his feelings. Why had they blushed before? Could he be developing feelings for this girl, a girl he just met? He didn't believe in love at first sight.

"Probably just hormones," he muttered.

"What was that Devlin?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing!"

All the sudden the ground began to shake. He looked around, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why. Dark Side was on the move, and he was heading towards that girl!

"Look out, behind you!"

Character Responses

None submitted.

A/N: Two new characters enter the scene. Unfortunately for them, there's a giant Dark Side after them! And what was that pain? How are they supposed to stop an enemy that size? Find out, next chapter.

Wow, that sounded a bit too much like an anime preview.

On a side note, reviews help keep this story running/improving.


	10. Explain Yourself

**Explain Yourself**

"Look out, behind you!"

It was too late. The giant heartless was to close, the girl would never dodge it in time.

He instantly reacted, no time to think more than these seven words, _I will never be a coward again!_ Andrew jumped from building to building to building, the whole world seeming to slow down around him, as he reached down into reserves of power he never knew he had. Two things were important to him, the lives of others, and the lives of his friends, ever since his parents had died…

"You leave my mom alone!" Brandon had shouted this. He had also gotten in the path of the heartless.

Andrew griped his hands to his head, barley able to force himself to crash land onto the next building before falling completely to madness. Images forced their way into his mind, images of the past. The day he first saw a heartless, his dad's soul chilling cry of agony during death, how he ran away, leaving his injured mother to fend for herself, _my own mother_.

The images played and replayed through his mind, forcing him to relive the worst experience of his life. Just as he was about to go crazy, it stopped. He had not noticed before, it appeared his eyes were closed. Therefore, he opened them, and found himself in a foreign, yet familiar landscape. _An awakening_!

He was on a weird stain glass platform, the kind that accompanies the awakening of a keyblade master. Compared to the platforms in the games, this one was rather simple. It had a yellow background, and a picture of a heart, radiating a powerful light.

"A little late isn't it? A year comes and goes, and now I gain insight into myself. Aren't these supposed to happen before the big life altering disasters? Guess someone in human resources screwed up big time."

Then it stopped being funny, the pain started up again, worse than before. This time was different though, this time the entire world seemed to shake, violently, to the point where Andrew was no longer sure he was going to be able to stay on the platform much longer.

The pain seemed to signal the arrival of a man, as a man had appeared. He was dressed in an Organization XII cloak, though the non-black chains were black on his. He radiated an unimaginably powerful dark aura, his mere presence made the keyblade master feel weak, helpless, and afraid. Fear seemed to smoother him, he could not breath, his fear was weighing down to hard, his heart struggled to beat, and the pain brought tears to his eyes, he struggled to see.

"Sensitive to the darkness aren't we? The emission from before, a pathetic display of fusion and you experience resistance pain. My very presence, and your heart is about to collapse. The keyblade sure picked quite a warrior to _resist_ the darkness."

He had experienced this pain before, and it was a mark of his incredible mind that this time he was managing to think clearly. _This man, his very presence is enough to fill my heart with fear, smothers me, fills me with such pain, and makes me unable to move, unable to fight back. He calls that fusion of the heartless pathetic, claims responsibility for it, yet I've seen nothing like it before in my life! Such incredible dark energy, who is he?_

Andrew wished he could see the man's face, if only to confirm he was human, but the man had his hood up, and an Organization XIII hood reveals nothing.

"Time to end this, amusing as it is to watch you slowly die, have more important things to do." The cloaked man raised his arm, and a red beam of energy extended from his hand!

_Xemnas!_

"**STOP!**" ordered a powerful, yet somehow gentle voice. Soon after the arrival of the voice was the arrival of the man, it belonged to. This man wore a cloak exactly like the other man's; except that it was white everywhere his was black, which was everywhere. His hood was up as well. The presence of this man saw the world slow down in its shaking, and the pain let up a little.

_The first man is of the darkness, the second is of the light. The pain isn't gone, it isn't even that much better, which means the man is substantially weaker than the first man! We're in trouble._

"You know the rules Makurayami! The boy is our champion; he is under the protection of the Luminarium you have no right to attack his heart!" Andrew felt the voice was commanding, and could tell that to the other man it was easily definable as enraged, but the incredible light he emitted, even if hampered by the darkness, made his voice sound gentle and kind to Andrew. The new man casually flicked his wrist, a faint, nearly unnoticeable barrier of light surrounded Andrew, and the pain (as well as the shaking of the platform) ceased.

"I know the rules, Kashoku. The rules _specifically_ state that, 'as long as the guiding light' that's you 'is within the champion's heart, the champion's heart must not be assaulted by the warrior the Letum hath chosen.'"

"Here I am."

"Just haven't tried entering over the whole year. Thought I would stop by to see if the guiding light is doing his job, and man have you been slacking. The boy has a major power clog that needs fixing, and it is not pretty."

"Away with you, those are my problems; don't you want the boy dead?"

"I don't want him to die to quickly Kashoku," and with that, Makurayami disappeared in a dark mist.

Andrew was beginning to recover, and had finally regained the power of speech. He wasted no time in exercising it. "Who was that?"

"You recover quickly, good to know. His name is Makurayami. He is the warrior the darkness has chosen. He is your enemy."

"Because I am a champion…"

"…Chosen by the light. I am your guiding light, and my job is to keep you well informed. So first off, you have been chosen to be a player in our little game, though it is more like being drafted into a war. The Letum issued us a challenge, exactly one year and two days ago."

"Who are the Letum, and who is we?"

"The Letum are your enemies, and we are your friends. To you, all you need to know is that the Letum are a faction of powerful beings of the darkness. Every once and a while they issue the light, represented by a faction known as the Luminarium, a challenge. The rules are simple, one of their members against a champion of our choice. The challenger writes the requirements for victory on two separate pieces of paper, and only the requirements for a victory from the light are required to be shown to the Luminarium. The challenger then proposes the wager, and the Luminarium can chose to except. We did, and chose you as our champion. The wager, your world. The challenge, seal the keyhole before the Letum wins."

"Why did you choose me? And what makes you think that the other side won't cheat?"

"We chose you, because the keyblade of light needed a new master, and you lived on this world. On an important side note, your body, which normally filters out emissions of energy from the heart, does not do so. Your heart is strong, another reason to choose you and the lack of filtering is the reason your keyblade is so strong, there are no filters blocking it, and the same amount of power needed for normal humans to merely maintain a keyblade is enough for you to crush mountains. Unfortunately, it also makes you sensitive. Your heart is deeply affiliated with the light and powerful enough darkness, dark energy more powerful than your heart, causes you pain. And the enemy cannot cheat because there are deep magics, more ancient than this entire world, which make it so that if anyone cheats, the faction they represent instantly loses a member, and the challenge."

"What kind of power could that man posses if his presence, just him standing their, is more powerful than my heart?"

"That's the question. He is very powerful, the leader of the Letum in fact. His power seems to grow in leaps and bounds. He will remain at one level for years, and then, out of nowhere, one day goes by, and his power has doubled."

"Your very helpful, but why don't you represent yourself, I'm sick of this war."

"That's against the rule, I'm only allowed to give you advice, and live inside your heart for the remainder of the challenge."

"Last question, what is a..."

"Power clog. You should be able to crush mountains in a signal slash, and you are not." He pointed towards another area, an area shrouded in a dark shroud, and a stain glass staircase appeared. "Your heart is in turmoil. You carry a lot of emotional baggage, and it affects you deeply. Normal humans could not summon a keyblade under these conditions, your lucky. Face the problem, solve it, and you will gain great power."

Andrew understood, his emotional turmoil was up those stairs, and he was supposed to go face it, most likely in battle. How cliché.

"Oh and I warn you, it is not going to be easy. I cannot help you their, not even a word of advice to ease your pain. You have to win by yourself."

Andrew did not need time to consider. He took one-step, then another, all the way up the stairway.

_I will never be a coward again._

A/N: I made a promise a while ago that I would do some double updates, didn't happen. Therefore, here is one to make up for it, and hopefully another one next week. In addition, Makurayami is the main villain of the story, and no, he is definitely not a pushover.


	11. Fears and Lies

Fears and Lies

He stepped into a world he couldn't recognize. There was a strong mist surrounding the platform, obscuring his vision. He looked down at his feet, and saw dirt, moist but not muddy. It didn't matter though; the only thing that mattered was the smell. It was the only thing he could easily identify, and it smelled horrible, like…

"Rotten Flesh, it smells like rotten flesh!"

The mist began to clear, not dissipating completely, but enough to show him where he was. He was standing in a cold graveyard, tombstones stretching in neat little rows for miles. He wasn't alone; there was a woman there with him. He easily recognized her blond hair, flowing down to her shoulders, her sky blue eyes which matched his own, and the robe she had on was colored to match. It was the robe she had on the night she died.

"Mom, how are you… how is it… what are you doing here?"

"Son," she barely managed to whisper, her voice in pain, "why did you leave me?"

Andrew rushed forward, and embraced her. "I'm sorry mom, I didn't mean to!" He was beginning to cry on her shoulder now, like he had wished he could for over a year. "I panicked! Forgive me."

She smiled, but whispered, "I'm sorry son, I understand, but I can't forgive you." Andrew's eyes opened wide, he was so stunned, he stopped crying. "I want to forgive you, but I can't." She placed her hands on his shoulders, and he saw bits of flesh falling off. Her body began to rot, and her eyes stared into his. Her hands were crushing his shoulders in their embrace. "I can't forgive you, for this pain!" Her eyes glowed red.

He wrenched himself free from her arms, and jumped back. She no longer looked human, her eyes glowed red, her hair lost its color, and her body looked like a living corpse, reaching for his neck, desperately trying to kill him.

A voice came from nowhere; hissing at him, _kill her._

"I can't kill her, not again!" He barely dodged her as she attempts to grab him, and chases him deeper into the graveyard. _She's fast for a zombie!_

This went on for a while, eventually, he realized he was lost, he couldn't see the exit. The world was a sea of tombstones.

Suddenly, a hand punches out of the dirt beneath his feet, the cold dead hand of his mother, holding him down. The phantoms were not one of a kind, nowhere near it. As if the on hand was their queue, thousands of graves were ripped open, and thousands of corpses climbed out into the world of the living. They swarmed him, holding him down and then he heard the last thing he would have expected. He heard a gun being loaded, past all the moans of the damned; he heard a pistol being readied for battle. Then he looked forward, and saw his dad, also one of the horde now, aiming it towards his head.

"Dad…"

He fired and Andrew finally reacted.

"Reflect!"

Light burst around him, tearing through the flesh of his captors, like so many lucent bullets. When the light cleared, the keyblade was in his hand, and he was ready to use it.

"Die tortured souls! Rest for good, it is time for you to disappear!"

He charged the remains of the horde, still outnumbering him greatly. Thousands to one, but Andrew liked those odds, the good guy always has to face overwhelming odds, and he always wins!

It wasn't long before a new warrior joined into the mix, one he never would have predicted. _I don't understand_! "But, you're not dead, do you hear me? Devlin's not dead!"

Swords connected with swords as Andrew soon realized, he couldn't out fight his new opponent. One on one, he might have stood a chance, but it was all he could do to block his thrusts, while kicking aside his mother's representations and dodging well aimed gun fire from his dad. Thousands of bullets were flying overhead, as Andrew realized that there were forty swords trying to slash him now.

"Run!" and he did. He slashed his way through non-Devlins and ran for his life, the zombie horde on his trail. He ran until he final tripped over an out of place tombstone. "What the hell."

He turned around quickly, the zombies were all still far behind him, all accept one. She was five foot ten, had a t-shirt and some jeans on. She had a staff in her hands and a powerful, tortured look on her face.

"Maria…"

She began to speak, as the voice that hissed in Andrew's ear echoed her. "You were too weak to save them; you are too weak to save me…"

Her voice sent chills down his spine, "I won't fail you!"

"You speak bold words, but your heart disagrees. Deep down you know you are weak, you know you will fail…"

Andrew looked down at the out of place tombstone, it looked old and beat up, but he could read the inscription.

_Here lies Andrew __Irvine_

_A man too weak to die with friends_

_A man who died alone_

"…deep down you fear death."

Andrew was on the verge of a meltdown, he didn't know what to think, was he too weak; was he afraid?

"No."

"What?" cried the startled zombie.

"I don't fear death. I fear failure, fear that I will fail my friends, and they will die because of it."

The zombies had almost caught up with them now, but they too had stopped, startled by the power of his words.

"But this isn't the end, and you're not Maria! Maria is alive and well, and she's expecting me to return, she wants me to live! And that's all the reason I need!"

The zombies looked at each other, confused. Was this the man who feared death? No, this man was different; he had never been that man. This was the man who had feared to fail, and now he feared nothing.

The representation of Maria smiled, and began to walk over. Andrew readied the keyblade, but it was unnecessary. She walked close to him, leaned over his shoulders (on tiptoes) and whispered, "Take care of her."

The zombies began to crumble, turning to dust. The landscape began to be absorbed by a new one, tombstones disappearing, and dirt fading away. The nightmare was over.

"Well done, you conquered your greatest fears. Your heart is untainted by conflict; you are closer to your full potential."

It was Kashoku; the man who Andrew could already tell had the annoying habit of appearing out of nowhere.

"Your friends need you, and you made a promise."

"She wasn't real."

"Someday, you will learn that unreality matters little. For now, you have promises to fulfill, and a wager to win."

"I'm sick of you and your game, my story is not yours to play with!"

"Go through the door, realize your destiny."

A door appeared behind Andrew. He shrugged; after all, he didn't want to let down his friends. It opened and he went through.

The environment had finished reforming. It had become another stain glass platform, with a picture of a tombstone on it. It read:

_Hear lies Mr. and Mrs. __Irvine_.

_May they rest in peace._

He was back in the real world, and almost no time had passed. He was halfway through a jump from a skyscraper to the ground. He managed to keep himself from killing himself on the way down. Not a pleasant thought!

He landed in front of Brandon, "Don't worry kid, I've got this."

"Andrew…"

"Surprised? And here I thought you would be grateful."

The monster heartless was about to strike, but Andrew heard a voice in his head, Kashoku's voice, telling him what to do.

_Focus on the virtue of courage, use your newfound power_!

Andrew did, and something unusual occurred, he felt drained, and invigorated at the same time! He recognized the weakness as being a lack of MP, but this strength was new to him. He found words escaping his throat without his consent.

"Limit break: Koudo ken!"

His sword glowed with an intense green light, and he suddenly knew what to do. The beast's hand was inches from his head, and he quickly cocked back his arms, and thrusted out at it with the keyblade. The heartless was instantly annihilated, the light had spread through its body, and torn it apart so fast, no one had even managed to register that it was gone for another three seconds.

Brandon looked shocked, and a little afraid. "What the hell was that?!"

Andrew starred at his keyblade. It costs his entire MP reserve, but it was worth it for such a terrifying power. He hoped now, that everything would be alright, that nothing could stand in his way.

A/N: It has been brought to my attention, that some people think that my use of the MP video game element is improper for a story. I agree! So in response to this, I thought I'd share my thought process on this aspect with everyone. I looked at the power of magic, and asked myself, what do I want to do with it in my story? At first, the answer seemed simple, include it, let be as powerful as you imagine it to be, and have the characters do what _they_ would do with it. Then a problem arose. It was perfectly acceptable to let Maria, who focuses on more pure thoughts than killing enemies, such as saving your friends, to spam cure spells, as her character would. However, if left to his own devises, Andrew would have become a sort of black mage, when I had always envisioned him as a warrior, because his characteristics are set in such a way that he would turn to his most powerful attacks almost immediately if they had no setbacks, and who can blame him! So I asked myself, how can I implement magic so that it isn't overpowered, while at the same time, not being so weak as to make being a mage pointless. The answer seemed to be obvious, limit how many times it can be used, by implementing the MP system. However, now I post the same question to you, how would _you_ solve this problem? Find a better answer than I did, as someone surely will, and I'll use that superior idea instead, crediting you for it of course. Share your thoughts, the more detailed the better, in a review, and I'll read them all! I humbly ask for help from the better authors than me on this site, to help me become a better writer. Thank you.


	12. Interlude: Reinforcement

A/N: Sorry for taking two weeks to update! As if to rub salt in the wounds of my loyal fans, this update is basically filler. Who am, I kidding, I don't even have any loyal fans, but that won't stop me from writing. This is an interlude, which when I'm writing the story, basically means that the chapter **is** relevant to the story, but it was typed in order to act as filler. You know, it can sometimes be a relief to know that no one is reading this story, (actually, two people read chapters 8 and 9, so they might read this, or it could be that one guy read it twice…) I cam get away with things like "interludes" easier. Still, I'd infinitely prefer a good review to this writer's invulnerability. So I lied early, their actually **will** probably be one kingdom hearts character in this story, and he is personally one of my favorites (though I never played the game he came from.).

Interlude: Reinforcement

He woke up that morning with a major headache. No, it wasn't his head, just his face, and not his face, but his scar. He ran his fingers down his face, touched the burning remnant of an old wound. "Damn heartless," he muttered. He traced the scar diagonally down his face, it usually didn't bother him, but something about today made him furious, he had to take out his anger o something, something with yellow eyes.

He got out of bed, pulled on his jacket, and didn't bother to zip it up. His Gummi ship was adequately heated, the jacket was merely a fashion accessory. He pulled on his black pants which were loose to allow blood flow to his legs, but tight enough to match his movements instantaneously in battle. He didn't put his belt's on, they may look cool, but there was no one on the Gummi ship with him to waste the effort on. He didn't put his shoes on simply because he didn't need them.

He didn't have to pick up his Gun blade either, it was already in his hand; he slept with it poised to strike at a moment's notice. He exited his room, and went a short way down the hall to his favorite room of all time. There were four rooms in the ship, plus the hallway connecting them all. There was the cockpit, the most crowded room in the whole area, small to begin with, but with tons of mechanical knobs, gauges, and buttons that Leon never even used taking up the limited space, because Cid said every single one of them was vital. His bedroom wasn't much better; it was Spartan in its decoration, and wasn't even high enough to for Leon to stand up in. The last room down the hall was the biggest, here, the engine was stored, along with food, water, and a power generator; one big storage closet. The fourth room, Leon's favorite room was between his bedroom and the giant storage closet, and it was this room he was entering.

This was a one of a kind proto type, and it was a mark of Cid's trust for Leon that he would allow him to use the ship with this room installed on his long-term mission. It was the most advanced piece of technology on this, or any other Gummi ship.

"Computer, load simulation nine. Set the count to ten thousand."

The machine was a battle simulator. It came to life, and the pale white walls were suddenly replaced with the familiar sites of the Radiant Garden. Leon knew from experience that he could go on forever, and he would never hit the white wall. He didn't know how Cid did it, but this room was a perfect imitation of real life, down to the very smell, it even smelled like home! Leon had never tried it, and didn't intend to, but he supposed that if you licked the ground, it would taste like dirt.

To serve its purpose, it had to do more than just remind him of home. Thousands of heartless appeared, and Leon knew it would be exactly ten thousand as he had requested. He couldn't have fought more than five hundred back in the days of Sora's infamous one thousand heartless battle, but thanks to this machine, he was now capable of fighting on the level of five thousand at once, he could only hope Sora had gotten stronger as well.

He readied the gun blade; this was going to be tough. The heartless numbered at twice as many as he had ever fought successfully, but he had to try, he had to get stronger.

"Die," he said, though it hardly mattered. These hated creatures couldn't hear him, couldn't understand. These particular ones weren't even real!

He waved his sword in overly wide motions, this would have actually hindered his abilities in a one on one encounter, but in this case, it served to hit as many enemies at once as possible. They died on contact, but there were more, always there were more.

His mind began to wonder as his arms got settled into familiar motions. He wasn't out here to train, in fact, it would have been better to train with the other's watching. They always encouraged him, always cheered him on, and deep down, it made him stronger than practicing alone, though he'd never admit it to them. No, he was on a mission, a long term assignment of the highest priority. He had to find Sora.

Sora had gone out into the infinite worlds, despite protests from Kairi to look for a cure to the terrible disease that had infected one of his most valued friends. He had disappeared immediately, and they never heard from him since. Even though Riku had joined him, again under protests from Kairi, they were labeled missing, and assumed dead. _But what could have killed them,_ thought the man with the scar on his face. _They were so strong, their power combined took down Xemnas, a man who had obtained the power of an almost complete Kingdom Hearts_!

His thoughts snapped back to reality, a heartless was about to try to take him down from behind. He did a spinning attack, hard to execute, but effective for attacking enemies on all sides. Unfortunately for him, his gunblade only made things more difficult. It was a big sword, and consequently, a heavy one, which was hard to spin around fast enough with while maintaining his balance. To be fare, he did manage to attack the incoming assailant from behind him, but he fell flat on his butt in the process, and his sword had gone flying. He had once again failed to execute this new technique; one had been trying for two months!

"Damn it Cloud, you make it look easy." He quickly got on his feet, months of practice serving to develop immunity to dizziness, and ran toward his sword, but he knew that it wasn't that easy, he had a massive amount of experience that told him what would happen next. Sure enough, like clockwork, the heartless pounced. As usual, the simulation didn't spare him from the pain, nor did he do it himself by turning it off. Pain was the best teacher.

He was however sparred the pain when the simulation shut itself down. "Attention captain," the computer alerted him in the voice of a pleasant woman, "sensors indicate the presence of a keyblade on a nearby world."

Leon began to feel a deep happiness in his heart; this was the first lead he had since his mission began! He quickly left the room to go to the cramped cockpit. As he went he reflected on the technique he struggled to master. He had indeed seen it used by Cloud two months ago, two days before the mission began. It consisted of the swords man using fancy footwork to spin his body at high speeds, using his wrists and fingers to spin his sword, and his arm to direct his sword at any oncomeing enemies. Cloud, despite having an even heavier sword than Leon, had effortlessly used this move to take out a couple of hundred heartless with his eyes close, an incredible number for a sword technique! His proficiency (he did it with his eyes closed!) showed that he had obviously invented the move.

Leon remembered that day well, Cloud had looked up to the building Leon was watching from, and opened his eyes. To the casual observer, he had looked as emotionless as ever, but to Leon those eyes had mocked him. They seemed to say, _I can take on any opponent and win, __who's the sword master now_?Leon had never stopped trying to imitate the move since.

He entered the cockpit, and sat in the captain's chair, looking at the monitor in front of him. It displayed a map of space, or at least the part of space that had so far been explored. One little dot had been highlighted, and Leon had the computer examine it more closely. The first thing that hit him was how _blue_ it was; about seventy percent of it was water. He looked at the coordinates and compared them to his position. They were relatively close, a day or two's journey by Gummi ship.

"Computer, what world is this, and what is the likelihood that the detected keyblade is the keyblade of Sora?"

"The world is known as Earth, and the keyblade is his to within a forty two percent chance of failure."

Leon considered this for a moment. The sensor, which was designed to detect unusual heart based activity, including heartless and keyblades, was a very new, and imprecise tool, and a fifty eight percent distinction as unheard of with such an insensitive instrument. So he decided, "Computer, set a course for Earth."


	13. AN: About the hiatus

Hello, I'm Back!

Sorry about the major laps in updates, but to be honest, I had given up. Problems had been rising in my daily life, the story wasn't turning out how I wanted it to, I couldn't find time to update, and I kept promising I would when I couldn't. All of this was very frustrating, so sorry about the unannounced hiatus. I come back now that my life is more stable, and I read my own story, and find that even _**I **_find it, at best, bland. Not a good thing when even the author doesn't want to finish reading his own story!

My current plan of action, rewrite the entire thing. I cannot promise it will be out in any thing resembling a timely fashion, but I plan to rewrite every chapter and create a buffer before updates resume. The story should remain mostly the same, but will (hopefully) be rewritten into a more interesting format, one that (among other things) actually develops the characters.

The story will be posted under new (or at least edited) tittle, so reveiw away! If you want plot details chaged, just say so. Among other things, I'm considering allowing Marco to live, and even know what I would o with him if I did, so tell me if that idea sounds good. Oh, and suggestions in writeing style/grammer/spelling would help to. Thank you!


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